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a very different sense from that which is imputed to it, the conclusion acquires a character of boldness, which, however some may admire, the wise and reflecting will not fail to condemn.

In the construction of this clause, the first remark that occurs is, that the word MIGRATION is associated with the word IMPORTATION. I do not insist that noscitur a sociis is as good a rule in matters of interpretation as in common life; but it is, nevertheless, of considerable weight when the associated words are not qualified by any phrases that disturb the effect of their fellowship; and unless it announces (as in this case it does not) by specific phrases combined with the associated term, a different intention. Moreover, the ordinary unrestricted import of the word migration is what I have here supposed. A removal from district to district, within the same jurisdiction, is never denominated a migration of persons. I will concede to the honorable gentlemen, if they will accept the concession, that ants may be said to migrate when they go from one ant-hill to another at no great distance from it. But even then they could not be said to migrate, if each ant-hill was their home in virtue of some federal compact with insects like themselves. But, however this may be, it should seem to be certain that human beings do not migrate, in the sense of a constitution, simply because they transplant themselves from one place, to which that constitution extends, to another which it equally

covers.

If this word migration applied to freemen, and not to slaves, it would be clear that removal from state to state would not be comprehended within it. Why, then, if you choose to apply it to slaves, does it take another meaning as to the place from whence they are to come?

Šir, if we once depart from the usual acceptation of this term, fortified as it is by its union with another in which there is nothing in this respect equivocal, will gentlemen please to intimate the point at which we are to stop? Migration means, as they contend, a removal from state to state, within the pale of the common government. Why not a removal also from county to county, within a particular state-from plantation to plantation-from farm to farm-from hovel to hovel? Why not any exertion of the power of locomotion? I protest I do not see, if this arbitrary limitation of the natural sense of the term migration be warrantable, that a person to whom it applies may not be compelled to remain immovable all the days of his life (which could not well be many) in the very spot, literally speaking, in which it was his good or his bad fortune to be born.

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Whatever may be the latitude in which the word "persons is capable of being received, it is not denied that the word "importation" indicates a bringing in from a jurisdiction foreign to the

United States. The two termini of the importation, here spoken of, are a foreign country and the American Union; the first the terminus a quo, the second the terminus ad quem. The word migration stands in simple connection with it, and of course is left to the full influence of that connection. The natural conclusion is, that the same termini belong to each, or, in other words, that if the importation must be abroad, so also must be the migration; no other termini being assigned to the one which are not manifestly characteristic of the other. This conclusion is so obvious, that to repel it, the word migration requires, as an appendage, explanatory phraseology, giving to it a different beginning from that of importation. To justify the conclusion that it was intended to mean a removal from state to state, each within the sphere of the constitution in which it is used, the addition of the words from one to another state in this Union, were indispensable. By the omission of these words, the word "migration" is compelled to take every sense of which it is fairly susceptible from its immediate neighbor "importation." In this view it means a coming, as "importation" means a bringing, from a foreign jurisdiction into the United States. That it is susceptible of this meaning, nobody doubts. I go further. It can have no other meaning in the place in which it is found. It is found in the constitution of this Union; which, when it speaks of migration as of a general concern, must be supposed to have in view a migration into the domain which itself embraces as a general government.

Migration, then, even if it comprehends slaves, does not mean the removal of them from state to state, but means the coming of slaves from places beyond their limits and their power. And if this be so, the gentlemen gain nothing for their argument by showing that slaves were the objects of this term.

An honorable gentleman from Rhode Island,* whose speech was distinguished for its ability, and for an admirable force of reasoning, as well as by the moderation and mildness of its spirit, informed us, with less discretion than in general he exhibited, that the word " migration" was introduced into this clause at the instance of some of the southern states, who wished by its instrumentality to guard against a prohibition by congress of the passage into those states of slaves from other states. He has given us no authority for this supposition, and it is, therefore, a gratuitous one. How improbable it is, a moment's reflection will convince him. The African slave-trade being open during the whole of the time to which the entire clause in question referred, such a purpose could scarcely be entertained; but if it had been entertained, and there was believed to be a necessity for securing it, by a restriction

* Mr. Burrill.

upon the power of congress to interfere with it, is it possible that they who deemed it important would have contented themselves with a vague restraint, which was calculated to operate in almost any other manner than that which they desired? If fear and jealousy, such as the honorable gentleman has described, had dictated this provision, a better term than that of "migration," simple and unqualified, and joined too with the word "importation," would have been found to tranquillize those fears and satisfy that jealousy. Fear and jealousy are watchful, and are rarely seen to accept a security short of their object, and less rarely to shape that security of their own accord, in such a way as to make it no security at all. They always seek an explicit guaranty; and that this is not such a guaranty this debate has proved, if it has proved nothing else.

Sir, I shall not be understood by what I have said to admit that the word migration refers to slaves. I have contended only that if it does refer to slaves, it is in this clause synonymous with importation; and that it cannot mean the mere passage of slaves, with or without their masters, from one state in the Union to another.

But I now deny that it refers to slaves at all. I am not for any man's opinions or his histories upon this subject. I am not accustomed jurare in verba magistri. I shall take the clause as I find it, and do my best to interpret it.

*

[After going through with that part of his argument relating to this clause of the constitution, Mr. Pinkney concluded his speech by expressing a hope that (what he deemed) the perilous principles urged by those in favor of the restriction upon the new state would be disavowed or explained, or that at all events the application of them to the subject under discussion would not be pressed, but that it might be disposed of in a manner satisfactory to all by a prospective prohibition of slavery in the territory to the north and west of Missouri.]

352

SPEECH OF JOHN RANDOLPH

ON

THE TARIFF BILL,

DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
UNITED STATES, APRIL 15, 1824.

OF THE

I AM, Mr. Speaker, practising no deception upon myself, much less upon the house, when I say, that if I had consulted my own feelings and inclinations, I should not have troubled the house, exhausted as it is, and as I am, with any further remarks upon this subject. I come to the discharge of this task, not merely with reluctance, but with disgust; jaded, worn down, abraded, I may say, as I am by long attendance upon this body, and continued stretch of the attention upon this subject. I come to it, however, at the suggestion, and in pursuance of the wishes of those, whose wishes are to me, in all matters touching my public duty, paramount law; I speak with those reservations, of course, which every moral agent must be supposed to make to himself.

It was not more to my surprise, than to my disappointment, that on my return to the house, after a necessary absence of a few days, on indispensable business, I found it engaged in discussing the general principle of the bill, when its details were under consideration. If I had expected such a turn in the debate, I would, at any private sacrifice, however great, have remained a spectator and auditor of that discussion. With the exception of the speech, already published, of my worthy colleague on my right (Mr. P. P. Barbour), I have been nearly deprived of the benefit of the discussion which has taken place. Many weeks have been occupied with this bill (I hope the house will pardon me for saying so) before I took the slightest part in the deliberations of the details; and I now sincerely regret that I had not firmness enough to adhere to the resolution which I had laid down to myself, in the early stage of the debate, not to take any part in the discussion of the details of the measure. But, as I trust, what I now have to say upon this subject, although more and better things have been said by others, may not be the same that they have said, or may not be said in

the same manner. I here borrow the language of a man who has been heretofore conspicuous in the councils of the country; of one who was unrivalled for readiness and dexterity in debate; who was long without an equal on the floor of this body; who contributed as much to the revolution of 1801, as any man in this nation, and derived as little benefit from it; as, to use the words of that celebrated man, what I have to say is not that which has been said by others, and will not be said in their manner, the house will, I trust, have patience with me during the time that my strength will allow me to occupy their attention. And I beg them to understand, that the notes which I hold in my hand are not the notes on which I mean to speak, but of what others have spoken, and from which I will make the smallest selection in my power.

Here permit me to say, that I am obliged, and with great reluctance, to differ from my worthy colleague, who has taken so conspicuous a part in this debate, about one fact, which I will call to his recollection, for I am sure it was in his memory, though sleeping. He has undertaken to state the causes by which the difference in the relative condition of various parts of the Union has been produced; but my worthy colleague has omitted to state the primum mobile of the commerce and manufactures to which a portion of the country, that I need not name, owes its present prosperity and wealth. That primum mobile was southern capital. I speak not now of transactions quorum pars minima fui, but of things of which, nevertheless, I have a contemporaneous recollection. I say, without the fear of contradiction, then, that in consequence of the enormous depreciation of the evidences of the public debt of this country-the debt proper of the United States (to which must be added an item of not less than twenty millions of dollars, for the state debts assumed by the United States) being bought up and almost engrossed by the people of what were then called the Northern States-a measure which nobody dreamt any thing about, of which nobody had the slightest suspicion-I mean the assumption of the state debts by the federal governmentthese debts being bought up for a mere song, a capital of eighty millions of dollars, or, in other words, a credit to that amount, bearing an interest of six per cent. per annum (with the exception of nineteen millions, the interest of that debt, which bore an interest of three per cent.)-a capital of eighty millions of dollars was poured, in a single day, into the coffers of the north; and to that cause we may mainly ascribe the difference, so disastrous to the south, between that country and the other portion of this Union, to which I have alluded. When we, roused by the sufferings of our brethren of Boston, entered into the contest with the mother country, and when we came out of it-when this constitution was adopted, we were comparatively rich; they were positively poor

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